Upright vacuum cleaners are well known in the art. Typically, these vacuum cleaners include an upper housing pivotally mounted to a vacuum cleaner foot. The foot is formed with a nozzle opening defined in an underside thereof and may include an agitator mounted therein for loosening dirt and debris from a floor surface. A motor and fan may be mounted to either the foot or the housing for producing suction at the nozzle opening. The suction at the nozzle opening picks up the loosened dirt and debris and produces a flow of dirt-laden air which is ducted to the vacuum cleaner housing.
In conventional vacuum cleaners, an agitator is positioned within the nozzle to loosen dirt which is embedded within the carpet fibers. The agitator may either be driven by a suction motor or an separate agitator motor. Many vacuum cleaners have the ability to redirect the suction from the agitator nozzle to the accessory tools. One method of accomplishing this is to attach a removable flexible hose to a duct connected to the nozzle. When it is desired to use an accessory tool, an operator may simply disconnect the hose from the duct. A drawback to removing the hose from the duct, is that the agitator may still send particles into the duct, even though the suction has been removed. One solution to this problem is to disengage the agitator from the suction motor used to drive the agitator. A drawback to this solution is that such mechanisms are typically complex and costly. Another solution to this problem is to de-energize the agitator motor. Again, vacuum cleaners with separate agitator motors have the drawback of being complex and expensive to produce. A third solution is to provide a blocker door which simply is moved to block the duct when the hose is removed from the duct. The blocker door may then be moved out of the way when the hose is replaced on the duct. A drawback to many blocker door systems is that moving the blocker door and positioning to hose on the duct cannot be accomplished by the operator using one hand.
What is needed therefore, is a blocker door for an agitator duct that overcomes the above-mentioned drawbacks.